Not afforded the luxury of instant replay, Neal Pionk thought he was just being a good teammate.
The Rangers defenseman was skating back to cover Coyotes winger Christian Fischer on Friday night when the two got tangled going hard to the net, which resulted in Henrik Lundqvist getting knocked onto his back.
Pionk immediately went after Fischer and dropped his gloves for his first career fight. Both were assessed five-minute penalties while Pionk got an extra two for unsportsmanlike conduct, which opened the door for the Coyotes to score their first of four unanswered goals in a 4-3 win.